Company insight
Quality packaging for quality products
From variety to regulation, contemporary medical device packaging isn’t easy. But as Dr Andreas Brans from VP Medical Packaging explains, securing the right solutions isn’t impossible with the right support. Medical Device Developments investigates.
globalisation, international medical devices would be impossible without quality packaging. In practice, however, sourcing the right materials can be challenging, particularly once you factor in regulatory and sustainability hurdles. But by leaning on external expertise, manufacturers can quickly find the packaging solutions they need, as one German company is vividly showing. Dr Andreas Brans is perfectly placed to explore the difficulties and opportunities of packaging across the pharma sector. An industry specialist for nearly three decades, since 2015 he’s worked as the head of the medical industry business unit at VP Medical Packaging. Headquartered in the Munich suburbs, this unit of the wider VP Group has developed medical products for 50 years – and as Brans stresses, that history is matched by the range of packaging his company produces.
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“When we speak about plasters or wound treatment, they’re very simple products,” he explains, meaning that the rules around how such devices are packaged are similarly straightforward. On the other hand, Brans continues, complex machines like implants and pacemakers require far more sturdy packaging, even as sophisticated synthetic fibres like Tyvek complicate the supply chain yet further.
Quite apart from this bewildering variety – requiring a detailed knowledge of exactly what a customer requires – rising regulatory standards pose their own problems. That’s particularly true around documentation, with lawmakers now expecting stakeholders to carefully detail every phase of the manufacturing process. And if Brans suggests that evidence gathering now takes up some 50% of his
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team’s schedule, sustainability promises to increase workloads even more. Long a marginal focus across the
sector, things are changing fast. Quite aside from standards like the EU Green Claims Directive, that’s clear enough if you examine the numbers, with the global sustainable pharma packaging market expected to enjoy CAGR of 14.5% through 2027.
A packaging powerhouse With all these difficulties in mind, how can manufacturers secure reliable packaging – all across a range of devices and fulfilling the relevant environmental and legal criteria? Listen to Brans and the answer begins through close professional relationships. Noting that 85% of VP Medical Manufacturing’s turnover comes from customised products, Brans notes that his colleagues first discuss exactly what their customers need.
From there, the R&D team jumps in, solicitously understanding any auditing specifications, alongside what a client’s production line actually looks like. “We have to do all this together,” Brans says, “with the quality assurance of our customers” – as well as VP’s own medical assurance division to keep up with that mountain of documentation. If this thorough approach helps tick regulatory boxes, Brans and his team are equally robust from a sustainability perspective. None of this is easy: in an understandably sensitive market, sterilisation is often a must, while green materials can never sacrifice quality for environmentalism. As Brans bluntly puts it: “Sustainability is very important, but not at the expense of quality and the protection of patients and medical staff.” Once you factor in questions around recyclability, where contamination is a
looming danger, you can see how challenging going green in this sector truly is. Fortunately, this is a company adept at leveraging its long experience to square the circle. One good example are its mono-films. Developed by VP Medical Packaging to be thicker than multi-film alternatives – which Brans concedes is a “disadvantage” – they can be recycled. That’s obviously a boon for green- minded manufacturers everywhere. Yet as Brans himself concedes, the path towards a sustainable tomorrow is hardly straightforward. Beyond the knotty technical questions, that’s arguably most obvious from a regulatory perspective, with new EU packaging rules potentially arriving in June 2024. As Brans says, that could quickly result in “many, many new requirements” for stakeholders. Yet speak to Brans and you get the sense that he’s optimistic for the future. For one thing, he can lean on his company’s deep heritage. “We are,” he emphasises, “experts in documentation, and that helps us secure the trust of our customers around the world.” That global outlook is no accident. For if VP Medical Packaging has long focused on its core European market, it increasingly has its eyes on Asia and North America. Harmonisation certainly helps here – the EU regulations Brans knows so well are echoed by counterparts elsewhere – as does his company’s insistence on leveraging local expertise. “We invest in our local sales teams,” he says, “and don’t send out people from Germany or from Europe.” Such thoughtfulness feels typical of VP Medical Packaging as a firm, and surely puts it in good stead in a rapidly changing sector. ●
www.vp-group.de/en/ Medical Device Developments /
www.nsmedicaldevices.com
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